With Scranton stop, Joe Biden's still in the picture

The vice president would be the first to tell you he’s no shrinking violet, but when it comes to 2016, he’s perennially in the shadows of two larger-than-life figures: President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

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Clinton is the gatehouse guard whose decision on whether to run would likely sway Biden’s decision, while Obama is potentially both an asset and a liability for Biden.

But on Friday, he’ll offer a reminder that he’s still in the picture — and a glimpse of his next possible policy push — as he joins Obama on the final stop of a two-day bus tour that ends in his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pa., to talk about college affordability.

Set for 5 p.m. on a late August Friday, it won’t be a major media moment like the joint Obama-Clinton interview that aired on “60 Minutes” earlier this year. Even so, it’s a reminder to voters that Biden is still by the president’s side, fighting for the middle class — five years to the day after he was announced as Obama’s running mate at a rally in Springfield, Ill.

It won’t be a one-off — Biden is also expected to hold more events on college affordability in the coming months, sources close to him said.

Biden’s Friday appearance with Obama marks the end of a summer that Biden largely spent out of the public eye and away from the political fray. Since his push for new gun legislation lost steam this spring, he’s spent much of the past few months out of Washington — on foreign trips in May and July and, this month, a week each in the Hamptons and Wilmington, Del. (He was also unexpectedly sidetracked earlier this week as he traveled to Texas with his son Beau, who experienced medical problems while on a family vacation.)

If Biden were to run, the middle-class appeal he’s showcasing Friday would be a key starting point, just as it was in his bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. So too would his decades of experience on foreign policy and domestic security. But it would all hinge on the Obama connection Biden’s spotlighting in Scranton.

Biden and his allies know they’re hitching his fate to a volatile star. The wager: casting himself as Obama’s strong and influential vice president still does more to boost his 2016 chances than to weigh them down.

During any new presidential bid, Biden “will have an important case to make in terms of his role as an indispensable part of this administration,” said his 2008 campaign manager, Luis Navarro, who now works for the National Democratic Institute in the country of Georgia. “And I think Democrats will ultimately see this as a successful administration, not something to run away from.”

While Biden’s fortunes could rise and fall on Americans’ broader views of Obama’s accomplishments, he could choose to focus on specific roles he’s played while in the White House.

In 2009 and 2010, he was “Sheriff Joe” after $800 billion in stimulus started flowing out of Washington, tasked with helping implement the law and keeping governments accountable for the money they got.

“He was always in the important economic meetings, pointing out ways to help the middle class,” said Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economist from 2009 to 2011.

Biden has also been a key negotiator on foreign policy issues that Obama has delegated to him, including the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. In late 2012 and early 2013, he brokered a deal to avert the fiscal cliff and made a good-faith effort at a “grand bargain” in talks with Republicans in the spring of 2011. And he spent the first half of this year as Obama’s point man on guns.

While the guns push didn’t result in tougher laws, it is the most recent data point on Biden’s decades-old tough-on-crime record, which included key roles in passing the Violence Against Women Act and the federal ban on assault weapons in the 1990s.

“He has a unique history and ability on these issues,” said John Marttila, who has advised Biden since his 1972 Senate race. “They’re assets that are largely unknown but that would be an important part of any campaign.”

Now, as Clinton begins weighing in with a series of policy speeches, Biden could use college affordability events to emphasize his middle-class warrior credentials.

The move would keep his 2016 options open by playing to one of Biden’s key strengths — his appeal to working- and middle-class voters — as some of his close allies are working to help give him a profile boost heading into 2014 congressional races, potentially with a leadership PAC, as POLITICO first reported in July.

Clinton’s current front-runner status and high-profile moves may play into Biden’s short-term strategic thinking — but it wouldn’t necessarily keep him from entering the race, several people close to him said. “We’re a long way away from 2016 in some respects, and front-runners historically run into difficulties,” Navarro said, hinting at Clinton’s come-from-ahead loss in 2008.

Plus, Navarro and other Biden allies noted, two-term vice presidents have generally been treated well by primary voters, whatever their fall fortunes.

“At least as the race is being framed now, he’s in the catbird seat,” Navarro said.